Grace Adetutu Balogun is the coordinator of Habitation of Hope, a ministry under the Redeem Christian Church of God (RCCG), commissioned to rescue depressed and destitute boys from the ages of 7-17 years from the street, as well as, transform and empower them to be self-reliant. In this interview with selected journalists at the home in Mowe, Ogun State, she shared the visions and impacts of the home on the lives of the children. INIOBONG IWOK was there. Excerpts:
What is the objective of setting up Habitation of Hope?
Habitation of Hope ministry is a child of evangelism. I was a pastor then, I mean a parish pastor with the Redeem Christian Church of God, and I heard a voice that said; “Go to Kuramo”. But I did not know where Kuramo is in Lagos.
But at that time I had a prayer partner. I was living in Ebute metta, apparently my prayer partner lived in Ikoyi. I asked her how to get to Kuramo and she said it was near Eko Hotel in Victoria Island. But what we saw when we got there was beyond reasoning.
It was a beach area of over 10 kilometres harboring hoodlums, including prostitutes. What attracted my attention was a pregnant prostitute and I asked her how she added pregnancy to her prostitution.
She told me she was 13 years old, and that someone introduced her to Kuramo.
I asked how many men she had sex with in a day and she said about 13. I also asked who owned the pregnancy, and she did not know. I wept and thought God was asking us to do something.
At first, I thought it was the girls, within two months we organised a crusade. In any of the communities we often discuss with the head of the place. We do not find it easy with them, but with prayers they said, ‘You can come and talk with as many young boys and girls as possible’.
But the ones that attracted me the most were the girls and the number of girls in prostitution is huge and mostly young girls.
So, we go there on Thursdays with cloths and food and within two months we arranged a bigger outreach, and about 500 boys came out to give their lives to Christ.
We took it from there and invited them to our headquarters parish at Ebute metta. But what surprised me was that most of them were boys. When I prayed, God said these are your target, the boys.
So, for one and half years, I do bring them to our parish from Ikoyi every Sunday to worship. To my amazement all the adult members of the church left, saying they could not cope with them; their dirty and rough life. But I knew I wanted to do something with them, so we kept on bringing them to church.
We only pick them up to church and drop them after, but I discovered that was the only congregation I had. I was enjoying something from them, because within one year, there had been significant changes in them.
They could now sing and recite the bible. I was beginning to love the transformation I was seeing in them; I go to friends to give me cloths and different things for them.
In 2006, we brought them to the Redeemed Camp for the Holy Ghost Congress and someone saw me and asked; what are you doing with this kind of children? Most of them came with marijuana, but I just wanted them to know Jesus. I told them to sit in the field and when they go near the congregation, they became afraid.
Another member of the church, who knew me asked again; what are you doing with these children? I replied that they were my congregation, not knowing that I did not have where to keep them.
She said I should get to the wife of the General Overseer? I told her I did not know how to reach her, so she guided me on how I can get to her. I got there, I did not see her, but I saw the son and told him I had this challenge, because she was also always busy during the congress.
It was not easy but because God wanted to do something, she listened to the son and said go and give them hostel.
So, for one week we were in the hostel and go to the auditorium for the church programmes. She brought food, morning and night.
On the last day, we had to leave, but the boys said we cannot leave, we had been on the ground; but mama gave us bed and slippers and now we are going back to Kuramo to sleep on the sand we are not going, they all started crying, I was touched.
The person that brought them slippers and mattress said; go and tell them that the boys do not want to go, they are crying. But they had to go, because they were too hard for the Christian community.
I still cannot explain up till date, but the wife of the general overseer said we should go that she would send for me.
I was wondering how she would reach me, because she does not have my number, not knowing she had asked someone to take my number.
At a particular time an incident happened, the boy’s major works at the beach is to fetch water for the prayer people, but while doing that six of the boys got drowned and they called me.
At that same time mama called me and asked what the problem was and I told her that six of the boys, I took to the camp got drowned and she shouted; that was how the ministry started in 2005.
How is the church you started from in Ebute metta doing and what is the objective of the home?
Yes, I was a parish pastor there; it is called City of Great King Parish. The objective of this place is to salvage the homeless and abandoned children from the street and make them better. We do get to know their parents if they still have any and also reconcile them back to Christ. We also give them education and show them the way of the Lord.
How did you reform them, especially from taking marijuana?
It was not an easy task. When we started it was tough, the church has an arm, which is the drug addicts home in Epe. I had to go to them because by the time we started, we do not even know what to do with them. Mama just said; let them eat and work, but they became a problem to the camp site; fighting and smoking. That was why we came down to this side of the camp.
We rented a four-bedroom apartment, and I went to other ministries who were into the same thing to ask how they run their affairs.
I heard the Holy Spirit more than anybody in their reformation; He would tell me; ‘just go and arrange that section for them’ and through that they were responding to what the Holy Spirit was telling them, because, we used the words in their deliverance and reformation.
The ministry side was more of guidelines because immediately we knew there was a task at hand, we went to register the home. Government officials told us that we can only do for boys from 1 to 17 years, already the Redeemed Christian Church of God had such home for men.
Do you have any success story since you started the home in 2007?
We have the child development guideline, which we work with, it is helping us; but the truth is because of where they are coming from, they are lost. Some of these laws are for normal children; so what we are doing is not what we can do on our own; we depend on God to give us direction.
We do not have boys home like this before , we have a girls home, we have for the men, we have orphanage, but to have group of boys from the age of 7- 17, who have been on the street for 10 years, it is not easy.
When we meet them, these boys were drug peddlers; they practised homosexuality, among others and because of their peculiarity, we take our time. Our trainers and teachers are spirit-filled. No matter the education you have, you must be spirit-filled.
Some of the children do come and say, ‘We have killed before; we have slept with 70-year-old women before, but since you have spoken with us we want to change’.
We do deliverance and prayers in the first six months when we bring them here, we concentrate on that, and we do not allow them to go to school. We put them in a room, give them food, television and we make them enjoy Jesus, then we do deliverance.
I have been to SOS to learn how to take care of this kind of home, and I discovered the power to take care of this place can only come from God.
You cannot just say such a boy should just start reading the bible and praying. In the first week, it is more of warm reception. We give them minerals and they eat twice, or three or four times a day.
How many boys has the home taken care of since inception?
It should be more than 2,000, but we have 200 in this place now. About five years after we left there, there was upsurge of water and Kuramo was submerged. So, we had to extend to other places, most of the boys, are doing so many things. We have reconciled many with their parents. Some of them would go and steal and give to their parents, we realised that some of them came from homes where the father had many wives and broken homes that is why you have 90 percent of them being Muslims. It is either they are from polygamous or broken homes.
For some, the father is a bus driver, they met the mother of the child under the bridge and they did not marry each other.
So, when the child came they said, let him go and live with grandmother and the boys turn to something else. Poverty is also an issue.
You said most of them are from Muslim background, is it difficult converting them to your faith, or can they practise Islam here?
No; we would not take that because the only power we have is the Holy Spirit and the word of God. Sometimes, we preach to the children for three months, every Thursday is our outreach, so they must be arrested by the Holy Spirit before we bring them.
Even when they are born as Muslims, it is not difficult for us to talk to them, I was born a Muslim, and so we can tell that; Jesus loves you.
